Appeal Tax Court v. Western Maryland Railroad

Alyey, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Under the law by which these appeals are brought to-this Court (Act 1876, ch. 260, secs. 28, 30,) there are but two questions open for consideration: 1st. Whether the property assessed is rightly assessed to the particular individual or corporation as the owner thereof; and 2ndly, where claim is made that particular property is exempt from taxation, whether such claim be well founded or not. All other questions arising under the assessment laws are left to the decision of the boards of revision to whom ample power is given to correct any errors that may be found to exist in the assessment.

Neither the Western Maryland Railroad Company nor the Union Railroad Company make any claim or pretence that their capital stock or the shares thereof in the hands of shareholders, are entitled to exemption. The Court below held the real and personal property of the appellees embraced in the assessments exempt, on the ground that,. ²⁹³ by the terms of the statute their capital stock was liable to be assessed. And while that conclusion may be quite correct as to levies made, or that may he made, under the Act of 1818, ch. 413, the first question here is: What was the effect of the passage of that Act upon the assessment previously made under the Act of 1816, ch. 260, as the basis of the levy for the year 1811 ? The appellees contend that the provisions of the Act of 1818, ch. 413, excluding from assessment the property, real and personal, of corporations incorporated by this State, having a capital stock divided into shares, and where such shares are subject to taxation as the property of the owners thereof, operated as a repeal pro tanto of the provisions of the general assessment Act of 1816, ch. 260, under which the assessment of the property in question was made, and that there is no authority for the maintenance of the assessment or the collection of taxes, except from the shares of capital stock.

The Act of 1818, -ch. 413, became a law on the 5th of April, 1818, and because at that time the matters of the petitions in the present cases were then pending in the Baltimore City Court, undecided, it is supposed that the repeal of the law under which the property was included in the assessment necessarily rendered ineffectual and nugatory all that had been done under the law, with respect to the property in question, prior to the repeal. In other words, according to the theory of the appellees, the process of assessing the particular property had not been completed before the law authorizing it had ceased to exist, and that with the law ceased all power to proceed farther with the assessment of that particular property. But is this position maintainable? There is no ground whatever for contending that the Act of 1818, ch. 413, can have any retroactive operation.

Before a statute can be allowed to have such operation, the Court must see that ²⁹⁴ the words arfe so clear, strong and imperative in their retrospective expression, that no other meaning can he .attached to them, or that the plain intention of the Legislature could not be otherwise gratified. In the language of the statute under consideration there is not the slightest warrant for any such construction. The statute must, therefore, be taken to refer to and speak exclusively of future proceedings under it, leaving acts and proceedings done under prior legislation to stand as they were at the time of the passage of the repealing statute. That being so, what was the state and effect of the proceeding that had taken place under that provision of the Act of 1876, ch. 260, repealed by the Act of 1878, ch. 413 ?

The assessors had acted and completed their work and returned it to the-Board of Review and Control, and that Board had revised and corrected the assessment and valuation, and had returned the books and lists to the Appeal Tax Court, the tribunal authorized to levy the taxes upon the assessment and valuation thus made. So far as the State’s agents entrusted with the work of making the assessment were concerned, the assessment was then complete. It is true, the statute, by its 28th section, provides a mode by which those conceiving themselves aggrieved in respect to the questions of ownership of property assessed to them, or exemptions denied to them, may have a review of those questions. But that proceeding forms no part of the valuation and assessment proper, any more than the ordinary application that may be made at any time to the County Commissioners or the Appeal Tax Court to strike from the levy list property that has perished, or to transfer property to other parties who may have become liable to pay the taxes thereon.

And the assessment being thus, complete, so far as the State was concerned, the 1st subsection of the Act of 1874, ch. 483, gave full authority for making the levy upon it; and the right of the State and ²⁹⁵ of the City of Baltimore to the taxes leviable upon this assessment and valuation was complete before the repeal of the statute, subject only to the right of the parties assessed, in the mode pointed out, to show and establish that they were not legally subject to such assessment. It seems to be settled by authority, that where rights are acquired under a statute, in the nature of a contract, or where there is a grant of power, a repeal of the statute will not divest the right or interest acquired, or annul acts done under it. In the case of the Steamship Co. vs. Joliffe, 2 Wall., 450 , there was an action brought for half pilot fees, alleged to have accrued by operation of a provision in a statute which had been repealed; and it was held by the Supreme Court that when a right has arisen upon a transaction which has given rise to an implied contract, or a right in the nature of a contract, authorized by statute, and has been so far perfected that nothing remains to be done by the party asserting it, the repeal of the statute does not affect it, or an action for its enforcement. So here, if the appellees are liable to be taxed as owners of the property, a duty has arisen upon the assessr ment made to pay the taxes levied, and such duty could be enforced by an action at law, as upon an implied assumpsit (Mayor, &c. vs. Howard, 6 H. & J., 395 ,) notwithstanding the repeal of the statute.

We are not however dealing with the question as to the mode of collecting the taxes, but simply with the question of the validity of the valuation and assessment as a basis upon which taxes might he levied. The General Assessment Act of 1876, ch. 260, required the property, real and personal, of all corporations to be valued and assessed to the particular corporations, as well as the shares of their stock in the hands of the shareholders ; and though the State by electing to tax the shares of stock in the hands of the shareholders, was precluded ²⁹⁶ from levying and collecting taxes from the corporations in respect of their real and personal property, yet there was a substantial necessity for valuing and assessing the real and personal property of all corporations of the class and character of the appellees, in view of the provisions of the Act of 1876, ch. 159. That Act provided that the property, real and personal, of each and every railroad company in this State, working their roads by steam, should be assessed and taxed for county and municipal purposes in the same manner as the property of individuals was then assessed and taxed. And though this particular provision of the Act has heen modified or partially repealed, because of its inconsistency or conflict with the provisions of the Acts of 1878, ch. 413, and 1878, ch. 178, yet it was not repealed by any repugnant provision in the General Assessment Act of 1876, ch. 260.

The general doctrine on the subject of implied repeals is, that where there are two Acts on the same subject, both are to be given effect, if possible. If, however, the two Acts are plainly repugnant to each other in any of their provisions, the later Act, without any repealing clause, will operate to the extent of the repugnancy as a repeal of the first; and even where two Acts are not, in express terms, repugnant, yet, if the later Act covers the whole subject of the first Act, and embraces new provisions, plainly showing fhat it was intended as a substitute for the first Act, it will operate as a repeal of that Act. This doctrine, however, only asserts that the former statute is impliedly repealed, so far as the provisions of the last statute are plainly repugnant to it, or so far as the later statute, making new provisions, is plainly intended as a substitute for it. Therefore, where the powers or directions contained in several Acts are such as may well subsist together, a repeal by implication is never declared.

This is substantially, the language of all the authorities. ²⁹⁷ Henderson’s Tobacco, 11 Wall., 652 ; Canal Co. vs. Railroad Co., 4 Gill & J., 1, 152; Dwar. on St., 674. And applying these familiar principles in comparing the provisions of the Act of 1876, ch. 159, with those of the later Act of the same session, 1876, ch. 260, there does not appear any such repugnancy between them as to require us to say that any part or provision of the former Act is, by implication, repealed by the latter. It follows from what we have said, that the repeal by the Act of 1878, ch. 413, of sub-section 2 of the Act of 1874, ch. 483, as that section was amended by the Act of 1876, ch. 260, and the sub-section 3 of the Act of 1874, ch. 483, as amended